Getting tired of berserker

Okay so, if you run Berserker armour and so on that's fine, I understand it's uses and if you want to run it in your build, that's great.

One thing I am getting tired of though is people are always defaulting to it in every single build they use. Seriously, go and look at people's builds and they are all berserker gear. Ask a build question and people are like "Why aren't you in berserker gear?"..

For one, it gives you no survivability in PVE so if you're going for that, why use it?
Two, look at all the people who buy into the zerker everything and just constantly die?
Three, if you're dead, you're not only taking away your dps for the time it takes to revive you but you're taking that person's dps away as well..

Tired of Zerk? Don't use it. Ignore people who tell you to use it and just have fun! No one puts a gun to your head and forces you to play something you don't like. There are tons of builds out there for almost every class that don't center around zerker gears. You just have to look around or some up with something on your own.

I, myself don't really like to play meta, I run what I like and have just as much fun as when I was running zerker my damage isn't nearly as low as I thought on some of my builds. Hell, even PVT gear is decent damage with its main stat being Power.

TL;DR - Play what YOU want and have fun. Don't tell others what to do and ignore those that tell you what to do. Its seriously not even that big a deal.

I run all manner of builds on my toons and like them all. This includes zerker. People complain about zerk for two reasons imo:

1. They join full zerk parties for some dumb reason only to get kicked. Even though LFG for them clearly stated that they are full zerk.

2. Whining about zerker is trendy and gives forum cred. Post this on any GW2 related forum and watch a river of karka flow your way.

That being said, telling people to go full zerk makes you appear to be pro which is why everyone does it. All of this leads people to believe that there is only one viable build in GW2 because all damage can be avoided with zero effort.

Your concern is almost as old as the game itself and has been discussed time and time again (I should open a "I am tired of ´I am tired of berserker´ threads" thread ).
As HederaHelix already said, if you do not like it, do not use it and if you do not like other people using it, do not join in on parties advertising "zerker or gtfo" in the lfg tool.

However, other people want to use zerker for efficiency purposes. You'll find the fastest way to complete 99% of content is to kill it before it can hit you. Some mobs hit so hard that extra toughness or whatever won't help as much as the extra dps.

Again, you don't need survivability if you're killing the mob faster than it can kill you. Blind, Block, Projectile defense and dodging all work the same no matter how squishy you are.

If people are dying easily wearing it, they're either learning to use it, or not very good at the game in general - reading attacks, knowing when to dodge/apply aegis.

A downed warrior's dps will outdamage a lot of non-zerker autoattacks.

Just so people understand where this rant comes from, Mythril posted a build and asked for feedback, was given honest, friendly and very good feedback, and decided that being told to use Berserker is some great attack and seems to have flipped out.

Survivability stats on armor are a waste, and most of the time actually counterproductive.

Consider the typical warrior. In berserker's gear, a warrior will have ~2.1k armor and ~20k health. Switch to a full defense gear set and traits, and you'll have more like 3.5k armor and 30k health. The result is (3.1k/2.1k) * (30k/20k) ~= 2.25 times more effective health. As in, you will survive just a little more than twice as long as before. But at the cost of only doing around a third the damage you were before. The result is that enemies' DPS will severely outpace yours. At best, you'll simply take three times as long to kill them. At worst, they will kill you before you can do enough damage to kill them.

The defense you gain from vitality/toughness on gear is especially moot when your defenses will come from skills: blind, block, dodge, control, reflect. All of those will entirely negate damage outright (except in regards to champions, against which blind and control aren't practically effective), whereas stacking all of the toughness and vitality you can will only serve to keep you standing another 5 seconds until the next attack that kills you. Those defensive skills that dodge, block, blind, control, or reflect don't benefit from defensive stats in any way, so you may as well run berserker's gear to get more damage.

To put it short: you get your defense from skills, not from gear. And if you're dying while wearing berserker's gear then, for lack of better expression, you need to get good.

The problem isn't that everyone's running berserker's gear. It's that there is no other worthwhile option. Running defensive/tanky gear simply isn't viable, and is at times counterproductive to your group.

Berserker is simply the best to go around with in general, since most of the Dungeon PvE scene can be completed without having to rely on the defenses of stats...
If people ask what they need for specific content, then give them the best available option; however that does not mean you have to run it yourself! I mean, if you are an Ele and can survive better in Valk than Zerk gear, then so be it, but don't turn a blindfold and say that Berserker is therefor not a good option and that people should run otherwise...
You can also avoid groups in the game who ask for specific builds, heck, when I did fractals with my guild I did it on my Necromancer when I felt to - despite it not being the optimal choice... However, we were okay with it since we were 5 men doing it anyway, and since we did not ran in the optimal conditions, it was a fine choice to take along for reasons...
I am generally more in favor of the saying: "Play what you want, but don't be a burden on purpose"

That said, there is still content that asks for specific gear, but again, you are locked in what is asked (think of the Tri-Wurm)...

All of this leads people to believe that there is only one viable build....

This is a bit of a misnomer. You can probably count the amount of people who think zerker is the only viable build on two hands. The consensus is, and always has been, that you can complete almost any type of content in gw2 in blue clerics gear if you wanted to but it is incredibly ineffective - and zerker(or assassins in some cases) gear is just the fastest most efficient way to complete said content. It's just all about saving time, and where time is the major factor dps is the obvious solution.

If it would take as long to complete a dungeon with a full zerker team as with a full clerics team then you'd see a massive shift in the meta, but of course that's not a real possibility.

OP: You can run whatever you want in open world PvE, nobody will give a crap. But if you go into a dungeon you are expected to pull your load and not have to be carried through the dungeon. That's not unreasonable if you ask me. It may suck but it's not the players fault, it's just how the game is designed. To answer your 3 questions, or statements:

1: Why would you ever need survivability in dungeon content? You stack, if you go down you get 4man rezed in a sec but most of the time things die long before you are in any danger of dying. If you are talking about open world content like teq/wurm then of course you are right but then everyone already agrees with that point so I don't see the reason to bring it up in a thread like this? And if you are talking about personal story/living story instances then you can run whatever you like nobody else cares.

2: Eh? If you're dying you're doing something wrong, either as a team or as a individual player. Simple as that, this is a learn 2 play issue.

3: Dead? When the hell would you be dead, this goes back to 1 and 2 - in a good organized group even if you down you won't get defeated and you'll be up in 1-2 sec again cus of 4man rez or warbanner. And again if you're dying like this then you still need to learn how to play properly. Between perma reflects, blind spam, aegis and various class abilities such as arcane shield/renewed focus/endure pain and so on and so on you should not actually go down even if you were naked and wearing no armor at all.

I have one of each profession in Berserker's. I also have a Cleric's Guardian and an "All Stat" geared Ele just for giggles. The nonzerkers do just fine in big zergs. Its dungeons where you lose effectiveness.

There are also plenty of guilds who like to bring whatever. Our guilds do that all the time. I prefer being laid back on TS, taking my time going through dungeons. I mean, the whole point is to play the game, why would you want to rush it? Then again, beating your best time is a good feeling. Its an adrenaline rush, lots of players enjoy it. Its a matter of play style.

For one, it gives you no survivability in PVE so if you're going for that, why use it?
Two, look at all the people who buy into the zerker everything and just constantly die?
Three, if you're dead, you're not only taking away your dps for the time it takes to revive you but you're taking that person's dps away as well.

If you want survivability, re-trait so that it covers your current competency level and then slowly ween off it.

For example, if running 6/6/0/2/0 is too squishy for you as an engineer, run 6/2/0/6/0 and lower your points in Alchemy the more comfortable you become. Wearing Soldier/Valkyrie/Cavalier armor over Berserker just lulls you into a false sense of security, and is also a waste of tokens/money for the PvE player in the long run. Traits cost no money, but armor does.

I would also like to argue that if you're constantly dying in Berserker, you're more than likely to constantly die wearing anything else. Very few classes make effective use of healing power, and stacking armor/vitality isn't truly as good as you think it is. It's blind, reflects, protection, and aegis that is far more important. You'll come to find that having a sword/pistol thief in your fractal group does a whole lot more for your survivability than what armor you're wearing.

Myself and a couple friends were doing a dungeon with a couple random people and they wanted to do full zerker run (max damage, skip mobs, exploit mechanics) so we tried it and they died many times which led us to be overrun and die. We switched back to balanced characters, got two new people and killed everything in the dungeon, no one went down a single time, and finished it in about the time of a single "speedrun" attempt. The only thing about survivability and support type builds is you may not get gold in events in the open world since they base participation on pure damage for some events. With condition damage you get edged out by everyone else trying to do condition damage and healing and support don't contribute to the event.

I do have a defensive warrior and a full zerker warrior and they play like night and day, but that's because of the entire build. In the end, though, the overall build depends on what you like to do with that profession. Some professions may only have one option for you, others may have multiple options. I've never really cared what other people do or say I should do because they're not playing my character. I don't really care what the best meta build is because I don't want to do it.

If you want to play the way you want to play, play with friends, or play with guildies. PUGs are what they are. Most people in the game have done the dungeon content, so they are there for one of two reasons: loot or speed clears. In this case, they are gonna be interested in what works best. In this game, they ditched the trinity so no one profession is necessary to do content. Unfortunately, that means not allowing any prof to be too tanky, too much into heals, or too much CC. What's the easiest way to do it? DPS. What is the easiest armor to get the most DoT? Berserkers gear. It allows the highest DPS, which kills stuff fastest and gets the PUGs through that dungeon fastest. Of course, most don't realize you need to not just Leeroy yourself into the battle, and pay attention to the game. For those experienced with it, however, it really is the fastest way to play, and you do die less, once you get the hang of it. I like not dying.

For a lot of us, yes, it seems a bit one-dimensional. Focus on your trait set-up, and your profession's style of gameplay. Make it a game-within-a-game: find different things you can do within that framework. Creativity emerges best under limits and pressure. That, and pay attention to what groups are looking for, as said above. If someone says speed-clearing, you can pretty much guarantee you won't be happy with that group.

Nobody is forcing you to play something you don't like but don't go pissin' on other's parade just because they WANT to go zerker. If you want to be efficient in PvE then Zerker is your best option - its like choosing between walking 30 minutes to work or taking your car. However, don't go blaming others for their choices, instead go blame ANet and the way they handle builds and their efficiency. Oh and if you actually have a decent suggestion or alternative for the problem then post it, don't just go whining about it because then nobody is going to care. Finding the problem is easy, fixing it is a whole different issue.

Sure there's a lot of elitists and 'wanna-be' pros in the game but if you actually keep an eye on the kind of party you join, it shouldn't be too bad. Most parties don't really ask what kind of gear you use, nor do they care, as long as you're not a complete noob who needs rescue all the time. If they ask for a certain build that you don't have, then its better for both sides to part ways because they have their expectations and goals that they want to achieve in a certain time frame and way, and you have yours.

I like the idea of berserker über alles because I couldn't care less for character progression through gear. That way, you can simply get a single set of gear and then not having to worry about it ever again. I don't think this is what A.Net wanted with GW2, but I am glad that they failed enough to do it.

Once you know the mobs in Dark Souls well enough, you don't ever need to wear plate armor again. Why would anyone wear the equivalent of plate mail in gw2 if they didnt need it in order to survive? If you want to roleplay as a tank or whatever thats fine, but don't pretend its as efficient or dont advocate changing the nature ofthe game in order to make your roleplay fantasies more efficient. If you need defensive gear to survive because youre still learning, by all means wear it.

Okay so, if you run Berserker armour and so on that's fine, I understand it's uses and if you want to run it in your build, that's great.

One thing I am getting tired of though is people are always defaulting to it in every single build they use. Seriously, go and look at people's builds and they are all berserker gear. Ask a build question and people are like "Why aren't you in berserker gear?"..

For one, it gives you no survivability in PVE so if you're going for that, why use it?
Two, look at all the people who buy into the zerker everything and just constantly die?
Three, if you're dead, you're not only taking away your dps for the time it takes to revive you but you're taking that person's dps away as well..

Just, I just had to put this out there.

If you could pick between finishing a dungeon or fractal run in less amount of time required, why wouldn't you?

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For one, it gives you no survivability in PVE so if you're going for that, why use it?

Dodge? I'm in a speed clearing guild. We've never had issue.

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Two, look at all the people who buy into the zerker everything and just constantly die?

They're bad or need practice. I'd still take them over any non-zerker any day. If you're referring to them in PUG situations, it's because of the non zerker users that prolong the fight unnecessarily.

TL;DR; berserker is still the only thing you should ever run in PvE, learn to dodge, stop being bad, etc etc.

It's not fast enough to go through all the stress of being in a HC guild. Dungeons are easy and don't take a lot of time regardless of what people run.

That being said, if you want to make money, learn to play TP and keep an eye out for farming events such as pav. Now that is something I would preach to new players. As for full zerk parties, they belong to speedclear guilds only.

It's not fast enough to go through all the stress of being in a HC guild. Dungeons are easy and don't take a lot of time regardless of what people run.

That being said, if you want to make money, learn to play TP and keep an eye out for farming events such as pav. Now that is something I would preach to new players. As for full zerk parties, they belong to speedclear guilds only.

This this this ^^^.

Have several guild mates that play the TP and have more gold then they know what to do with.

As for being tired of Zerker gear being the only real thing to use (outside of world bosses you cannot crit).
Allot of people I have spoke to are as well.

There have been plenty of suggestions for how Arena.net can make survivability more of an issue via changing how AI works, what abilities mobs have access to, how mobs attack & via making more unavoidable damage.
The thing is this would require allot of effort on Arena.net's part & also probably require that several classes have their survivability and condition removal ability increased. (which would lead to more changes being required in class balance).

It would also require a major revamp of how conditions scale & the math in how they deal damage.

So it probably won't change too much, which is sad but no game is perfect.

Tired of Zerk? Don't use it. Ignore people who tell you to use it and just have fun! No one puts a gun to your head and forces you to play something you don't like. There are tons of builds out there for almost every class that don't center around zerker gears. You just have to look around or some up with something on your own.

I, myself don't really like to play meta, I run what I like and have just as much fun as when I was running zerker my damage isn't nearly as low as I thought on some of my builds. Hell, even PVT gear is decent damage with its main stat being Power.

TL;DR - Play what YOU want and have fun. Don't tell others what to do and ignore those that tell you what to do. Its seriously not even that big a deal.

This. I agree with it. IMO, you can get away with zerker gear, but it depends on class and what you are running. For example, i run alot of SE/CoF/HotW path 1, so i'm used to where to dodge and etc. Now those, i can get away with full zerker and not be afraid of dying. But fractals? Yeah, full PvT on the 6 pieces of the armor. lol

You should wear what you feel comfortable with in order to survive as you learn the content and trade the defense for offense when you feel that you're too safe. Most of the people writing guides and giving advice already realize this and have stated as much, though maybe not in a way that doesn't still stigmatize anybody going through the process. Oftentimes as even in this thread, people will default to the 'learn to play noob' reaction when somebody asks why zerk and that answer is never helpful. Zerk gear is only optimal when you don't take damage. Many players still take way too much damage for it to be anywhere near as efficient as if they took just enough toughness/vitality to survive getting one shotted and continue to contribute DPS to a fight instead of being downed and forcing somebody to come to their aid. There are certainly times, especially while pugging, where nobody else can even get close enough to rez and they will just have to sit dead until the rest of the party clears the encounter or team wipes. That represents 100% DPS loss and is basically not what you want out of your gear at that particular moment. The meta isn't optimal in those situations, the player should realize his/her limits and gear appropriately. It will take longer but will be less painful and will also be an actual learning experience for the content itself. It's like weight training, you're an idiot if you try to bench your own body weight on your very first session. Build up to it slowly and run what works for you until it feels too easy.

So what you're really tired of is the combat system. Because ultimately berserker is a reflection of the poor design that when you eliminate every other role you end up with only one role: DPS.

I am with you, Balthazar know's I'm tired of berserker. If I could I would want to be a healing ele or guardian that supports and buff my team but if I did that I'd be totally useless. And you know why? Because everything but DPS is generally bad in the game. It's like we have gear options for classes that don't exist.

So what you're really tired of is the combat system. Because ultimately berserker is a reflection of the poor design that when you eliminate every other role you end up with only one role: DPS.

I am with you, Balthazar know's I'm tired of berserker. If I could I would want to be a healing ele or guardian that supports and buff my team but if I did that I'd be totally useless. And you know why? Because everything but DPS is generally bad in the game. It's like we have gear options for classes that don't exist.

Dunno, I've been running Clerics on my Guard for months; never felt useless. I even take the damn thing to Fractals. Maybe on paper all damage can be avoided but on practice players make mistakes, so being able to burst heal them for 12k hp every 9 seconds is nothing to scoff at. Be warned: Healing Power is a drug.

Nikephoros, on 10 July 2014 - 07:33 PM, said:

Berserker Guardian already does that. You don't need to change the name of your gear to play your class properly.

Me? I don't care at all who runs zerker and who doesn't. It's not my place to say who should do what. Similarly I have a strong distaste for people who tell me what to run and how to run it. It amuses me greatly that unless I say something, no one ever notices I am not running their meta "OP" builds. I run what I want with the runes that I want and I don't go around joining groups that ask for specific gears. There ARE many LFGs every day that say "Anyone is welcome as long as you know the content" my LFGs are similar and you know what? There is hardly ever a day that I have a problem or that I have to spend "hours" in a dungeon run.

As an aside: I just finished my Guardians Ascended gear... and you know what I am decked out as? Clerics. Ho'yeah. Love it so much. I don't regret it at all.

Two, look at all the people who buy into the zerker everything and just constantly die?

This is the only part that really bugs me about the whole issue.
in 3 words it boils down to "Unwarranted Self Importance" (search the term if necessary).
They embarrass themselves and then try dragging everyone else into it just to feel superior to someone, ..anyone
That's why all of the "Live and let Live" B.S. posts above don't cut it here. There needs to be real PSA's about this.

It's unfortunately a much more common occurance (esp. among "millenials") than the actual very tiny percentage of the Gaming population who has "Perfect Micro Skills". And people need to be told this. That they are not actually as good as they seem to think they are just b/c they can hit the dodge button for a 2-second telegraphed attack ...I mostly blame WOW, LOL, & COD for creating an entire generation of people who were conditioned to think this way.

They should get rid of gear stats. Then boost the attribute points to get them all from the trait system.

That wouldn't really solve any issues. What's more it would likely cause more issues because people would then be faced with the option of going for the best possible stats or a build they really liked.

There are also a decent number of classes out there like the thief, ranger & ele which require a broader mix of stats then others like the warrior to to attain the right mix of survivability & damage.

This is the only part that really bugs me about the whole issue.
in 3 words it boils down to "Unwarranted Self Importance" (search the term if necessary).
They embarrass themselves and then try dragging everyone else into it just to feel superior to someone, ..anyone
That's why all of the "Live and let Live" B.S. posts above don't cut it here. There needs to be real PSA's about this.

It's unfortunately a much more common occurance (esp. among "millenials") than the actual very tiny percentage of the Gaming population who has "Perfect Micro Skills". And people need to be told this. That they are not actually as good as they seem to think they are just b/c they can hit the dodge button for a 2-second telegraphed attack ...I mostly blame WOW, LOL, & COD for creating an entire generation of people who were conditioned to think this way.

I'm not a millennial and I think that the "live and let live" mantra works JUST fine. I don't see people going down as often as you seem to but maybe that's just me. I also don't feel it is within my rights nor my duty to seek out and "inform" people of anything. Everyone should be allowed to gear however they so please. If you don't like a particular set up, don't run it and maybe even go so far as to only run with people who also don't run what you don't like.

That is the thing about choices and freedoms, people can choose whatever they wish to be inside the game and you really have no ground to stand on telling someone else what to do. You can reach out and seek to inform if you WISH it, but that is on you and you really can't except a welcoming ear to unsolicited advice. This goes by the mantra is use even in my real life call the Underpants Rule: Simply put you are the boss of your underpants and I am the boss of mine, neither to two shall intersect unless both parties agree.

Simple matter of fact is; no matter what ANet does there will always be a best stat combo as you said. And even if they boil it down and make everything even, there will still always be skill and trait set ups that "outshine" the rest. That is what a Meta is. There is really nothing you can do about it short of stating your opinions and letting it be.